WSOP 2009. Info, Chip Counts, & & stuff. Feed your wild side.

[Rozza1]

Praz Bansi and Peter Gould are in the last 10 of the six handed event, so a good shot for a UK bracelet there too.

[Karabiner]

Paul Parker and Surinder Sunar are 4th and 5th in the $2.5k PLO/PLH event with 22 left. Ben Grundy, John Kabbaj and Stevie 'Allinstevie' Devlin are also still in. $8k gtd, $244k FTW...

Paul came back for day two as the lowest stack of the ninety survivors with just 2500 chips.

Climber Of The Year ?

[tikay]

Paul Parker and Surinder Sunar are 4th and 5th in the $2.5k PLO/PLH event with 22 left. Ben Grundy, John Kabbaj and Stevie 'Allinstevie' Devlin are also still in. $8k gtd, $244k FTW...

Paul came back for day two as the lowest stack of the ninety survivors with just 2500 chips.

Climber Of The Year ?

An astonishing recovery. It's the Flushy Horse syndrome at work.

Wonderful news to see our players getting deep in so many Events now. And a bonus for me, as someone other than me is actually Posting on this Thread.

So, onto today's news, just in.....

[tikay]

So, another Bracelet for Ivey, & yet again, he gets in an an "oddball" game. Are these easier to win, or harder?

And what's with Vanessa Rousso cashing in so many Events?  She really must be more than just a pretty face, which I had, to my shame, assumed was her only asset.

Chris Bjoriin - how many years has he been playing, ffs?

And Tony G - I think he's had 4 WSOP 2009 Cashes already. Clearly on form, is Mr G. He was a Shareholder in blonde for a while, but it all went tiddley-poo after the Monte Carlo Millions in '05 or' 06, but oddly, given my distaste for poor Table behaviour, we get on very well, & chat often. He's a big fan of Achilleas Kalakkis. Sort of.

2009 World Series of Poker         
Final Results         
Event #   8      
Buy In   $2,500       
Date   05/06/2009      
Game   No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball      
Number of Entries   147      
Net Prize Pool   $338,100       
First Place Prize   $96,367      
Players to Cash   21      

Final Results:         
         
Name   Prize   City   State/Country
Ivey, Phil   $96,367    Las Vegas   NV
Monnette, John   $59,586    Palmdale   
Chen, Yan   $38,891    Irvine    
Kesselman, Eric   $26,757    New York   NY
Rodeen, Talebi   $19,346    Los Angeles   
Zimmerman, Raphael   $14,663    Missoula   MT
Ahmadian, Elia   $11,627    Fairfax   VA
Flack, Layne   $8,452    Las Vegas   NV
Guoga, Antanas 'Tony G'   $6,292    Melbourne   Australia
Laszcz, Xavier   $6,292    Saint Cloud   France
Grey, David   $6,292    Henderson   NV
Deeb, Kassem 'Freddy'   $4,959    Las Vegas   NV
Bjorin, Chris   $4,959    London   United Kingdom
Iversen, Torstein   $4,959    Olso   Norway
Kamran, Michael   $4,094    Los Angeles   
Weitzman, Mark   $4,094    Las Vegas   NV
Rousso, Vanessa   $4,094    Las Vegas   NV
Greenstein, Barry   $4,094    Rancho Palos Verdes   
Mankin, Erle   $4,094    Sacramento   
Lindgren, Erick   $4,094    Las Vegas   NV
Karabourniotis, Anargyros   $4,094    Boulder City   NV

[tikay]

2 Sponsors Logos on his shirt, 3 sponsors logos on the Table. The Poker Economy at work.

[tikay]

All this is Harrah's supplied blurb. Good stuff it is, too.

It appears Mr Ivey plays golf, off scratch. Did everyone know that?

The Winner



·        The 2009 World Series of Poker $2,500 buy-in No-Limit
Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball champion is Phil Ivey, from Las Vegas, NV.



·        Ivey is one of the world’s best-known and most-respected
poker players.  This was his sixth WSOP gold bracelet, moving him into
a five-player tie for seventh place on the all-time wins list.  Ivey
joins Layne Flack, Men “the Master” Nguyen, Jay Heimowitz, and T.J.
Cloutier who each have six career wins.  This was his first WSOP win
in more than four years.  Ivey’s last win came in 2005.



·        Ivey is 32-years old.  He is married to wife Luciaetta.



·        Ivey has become a near mythological figure in the poker world
and is unquestionably one of the game’s most enigmatic personalities.
Considered by many to be the most publicity-shy poker star in the
world, he rarely gives out interviews or reveals much about his
private life.  Yet the further Ivey runs away from the spotlight, the
more it seems to shine upon him.  Ivey’s numerous wagering exploits –
many unfathomable to the average person -- have become part of the
popular modern folklore, making it difficult at time to separate fact
from fiction.



·        Ivey routinely makes stratospheric-sized prop and sports
bets.  He reportedly bet $1 million on last year’s Super Bowl.



·        Ivey was born in California, and moved to New Jersey at a
very young age.  He began playing Seven-Card Stud daily in Atlantic
City casinos.  By the time Ivey was in his early 20s, he was already
acknowledged as one of the East Coast’s best cash game players.  At
the time, opponents used the words “prodigy” and “savant” to describe
Ivey.



·        Ivey’s “poker office” was the Trump Taj Mahal until the age
of 24, when he moved to Las Vegas.  He then started playing tournament
poker and gradually attained superstar status.  In his first-ever WSOP
gold bracelet victory in 2000 and perhaps emblematic of poker’s
generational and cultural shift, Ivey defeated legend “Amarillo Slim”
Preston in heads-up play.  That marked Ivey’s first-ever final table
appearance, and Slim’s last.



·        Following his win in this tournament, consistent with his
secretive nature, Ivey rushed away without being interviewed.  In a
previous post-tournament interview after winning WSOP gold bracelet
number five (2005), Ivey stated:  “I think I can win thirty (gold
bracelets).  Tournaments are much tougher to win now because the
fields are (so big).  I don’t play as many tournaments for that
reason, but I still think I can get to 30.”



·        To get to 30 gold bracelets, based on the average life
expectancy of a healthy American male aged 32-years old (according to
actuarial tables), he would have to win a WSOP event about once every
1.5 years.



·        Ivey insists that he does not want to be famous.  He has no
desire to be a celebrity.  Ivey has told those who know him best that
what he enjoys most is competing and winning.  He is driven by a
fierce obsession to win and succeed in everything he does.  Ivey’s
other pursuits include golf.  He started out playing only a few years
ago and is reportedly close to be a scratch golfer.

[tikay]

        Only moments following his victory, Ivey was seen playing in
another tournament that had begun earlier in the day.  During a break
Ivey was asked a few questions in an exclusive interview.  The short
exchange went as follows (Note:  Media may quote freely from this
verbatim text recorded by Nolan Dalla):



Question:  What does winning gold bracelet number six mean?

Ivey:  It means I am one step closer to number seven.

Question:  What do you think as you look back on the Deuce-to-Seven event?

Ivey:  I don’t know.  It was a grueling event.  When we got head-up,
we played a long time head-up.  I did not expect it to last that long.
I expected it to break either way.  It was a tough final table.  I
don’t play that much Deuce, so I am pretty proud that I won a bracelet
in this event since I had not won this game before.  It really means a
lot.  Every time you win a bracelet, especially now, it is a major
accomplishment.

Question:  Your last opponent, John Monnette played a great game.  Agree?

Ivey:  Yeah, he is a great player.  I agree -- he played terrific.

Question:  Do you look at the players who are still above you in wins
– names like Hellmuth, Brunson, Chan, and the rest?  Do you expect to
surpass them?

Ivey:  Yes, of course I want to catch them.  I will.

Question:  You value your privacy.  Why do you prefer to stay so low key?

Ivey:  I just like to keep to myself and do my own thing.  I like to
be my own person.  If I can make money off it, that’s great.  If not,
then I can always play poker   There’s always someone around where I
can make a bet or two.



·        About an hour following his victory, poker pro Howard Lederer
walked by and needled Ivey.  “Don’t report that he won the
tournament,” Lederer boldly demanded.  “We’re working hard trying to
prove that poker is a game of skill, and Ivey winning is going to ruin
everything.”  Ivey smiled and quickly realized Lederer was joking.

[tikay]

Ivey collected $96,361 for first place.  He was also awarded
his sixth WSOP gold bracelet.  Ivey’s previous wins came in:



2000 -- $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha
2002 -- $1,500 Seven Card Stud
2002 -- $2,500 Seven Card Stud High/Low Split
2002 -- $2,000 S.H.O.E.
2005 -- $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha



·        Ivey is one of only four players to win three WSOP gold
bracelets in a single year.  The others are Puggy Pearson, Ted
Forrest, and Phil Hellmuth.



·        Ivey now has 31 WSOP cashes, and 19 final table appearances.

[tikay]

The Players



·        The final table was comprised of two former WSOP gold
bracelet winners – Phil Ivey and Eric Kesselman.



·        The runner up was John Monnette.  He is a poker pro from
Palmdale, who once attended UC-San Diego.  Monnette is certainly
not as well known to the public as Ivey.  But some hard-core poker
insiders suggest that Monnette might be close to Ivey in raw talent,
and perhaps even better at Deuce-to-Seven Lowball, since be plays the
game several times a week (Ivey admitted that he rarely plays the game
– certainly a disadvantage).  Known in some poker circles as “Crazy
John,” for his fearless nature at the table, Monnette started out
playing the odd game at Oceans 11 Casino in Oceanside, and
gravitated to the bigger game held at the Commerce Casino, in Los
Angeles.  He routinely plays $200-400 blind No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven
Lowball with a $100 ante – a huge game by any measure.



·        With his second-place finish, Monnette now has ten WSOP
cashes.  But cashing seemed to be the last thing on his mind after
finishing second.  Monnette is accustomed to daily swings the size of
the first-prize payout.



·        Yan Chen, from Irvine, finished in third place.  Chen is
another high-stakes Deuce-to-Seven specialist.  He is arguably one of
the most feared Deuce-to-Seven online players in the world.  Chen is
reported to have challenged anyone that he will play Deuce-to-Seven
for any stakes.  “He owns that game,” said poker pro John-Robert
Bellande.



·        Lowball legend and wizard Billy Baxter was contacted during
the match between the final three players.  “I know them all well,”
Baxter said.  “They are great players.  I think the right three
players made it to the final.”  Baxter even admitted from his Las
Vegas home that he was following the match online while it was being
played.



·        Fourth place went to Eric Kesselman, who won his gold
bracelet in Pot-Limit Hold’em at the 2006 WSOP.



·        Raphael Zimmerman, from Missoula, MT finished in fifth place.
Zimmerman is an avid poet.  He has written six books full of poetry.



·        The sixth-place finisher was Rondeen Talebi, from Los Angeles, .



·        Seventh place went to Elia Ahmadian, from Fairfax, VA.  This
was his second WSOP final table appearance.



·        Five-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Layne Flack, from Las
Vegas, NV finished in eighth place.

[AndrewT]

Ivey collected $96,361 for first place. 

That's nothing - he'll have collected millions in betting on himself with other players to win a bracelet.

[tikay]

Five other former WSOP gold bracelet winners cashed in this
event – including David Grey (11th), Freddy Deeb (12th), Chris Bjorin
(13th), Barry Greenstein (18th), and Erick Lindgren (20th).



·        The 20th-place finisher Erick Lindgren won last year’s WSOP
“Player of the Year” honors.



·        Popular poker pro Vanessa Rousso cashed for the second time
at this year’s WSOP, finishing in 17th.  She also cashed in the
$40,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship last week.  Rousso is having a
good year so far, as she finished second to Huck Seed in NBC’s
National Heads-Up Championship three months ago.



·        Two-time winner Jon Phan was the defending champion from last
year’s comparable Deuce-to-Seven event, which was played as a Limit
game.  Three Deuce-to-Seven tournaments are scheduled this year, the
most in WSOP history.  This event was played as No-Limit.  The Limit
version of this same Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Draw game with a $2,500
buy-in will be played starting June 29th.  The $10,000 buy-in No-Limit
Deuce-to-Seven World Championship takes place starting June 10th.



·        The undisputed king of Lowball games remained Billy Baxter,
from Las Vegas, NV.  The Poker Hall of Fame inductee entered this
event, but did not cash.  Baxter has won an astounding four
Deuce-to-Seven titles during his lifetime and holds seven WSOP gold
bracelets – all in various forms of lowball.  This record of
excellence in one variant of poker is unlikely to be challenged by
anyone, other than perhaps Phil Hellmuth, for his 11 gold bracelets
won in Hold’em.  However, given that a far greater number of Hold’em
tournaments are scheduled every year, Baxter’s supremacy is unrivaled.

[tikay]

Odds and Ends



·        Various Deuce-to-Seven tournaments have been a constant at
the WSOP since 1973.  In the past, Deuce-to-Seven has been played
almost exclusively by high-stakes cash-game pros, and at the WSOP.
This game is rarely spread inside public cardrooms -- either as cash
games or tournaments.  However, it is now becoming more popular as an
online game.



·        Deuce-to-Seven Lowball means the worst, or lowest-ranked hand
wins the pot.  The very best possible 2-7 lowball hand is 2-3-4-5-7 of
mixed suits.  An ace counts as a high card.  Flushes and straights
count against the player.  While a wheel (A-2-3-4-5) is the perfect
hand in standard lowball, in Deuce-to-Seven it is usually a losing
hand since the straight counts against the player.



·        There is some difference of opinion as to when and where this
unusual game originated.  Since the 1930s, variations of lowball have
been spread throughout California and Nevada.  According to poker
theorist David Sklansky, Limit “Double-Draw” Lowball was first spread
at the (now defunct) Vegas World during the early 1980s.  Others cited
a game called “Ten-Handed Triple-Draw Lowball” as the forbearer of
Triple Draw, which was played at “Amarillo Slim's” Super Bowl of Poker
tournaments in Reno and Lake Tahoe during the period 1979 through
1984.  Yet ten-handed poker could only accommodate perhaps three or
four players at most, due to the number of cards needed to complete a
hand.  Reducing the number of cards (to five) enabled more players to
sit in the game.  Thus the game as we know it exists today.



·        This tournament almost certainly attracted the largest
gallery in the game’s history.  The finale was played on the ESPN Main
Stage.  A standing-room only crowd watched the match from start to
finish.  Although each player had a rooting section, it was clear Ivey
was the star attraction.  His final presence guaranteed a full house
who seemed to understand that poker history was being made.

[tikay]

Note Ivey's winning hand - 7-6-5-4-2. That's pretty strong in this game, yeah?


The Event



·        The $2,500 buy-in Deuce-to-Seven No-Limit Lowball event
attracted 147 entrants.  This created a prize pool totaling $388,100.
The top 21 finishers (three tables) collected prize money.



·        The tournament was played over a three-day period.  The final
table was played on ESPN’s Main Stage.



·        At one point during three-handed play, Ivey had less than 8
percent of the total chips in play.  He came within one hand of
busting.  But Ivey clawed his way back into contention and overcame
each opponent one by one.  To his credit, the runner up John Monnette
was down by a 7 to 1 margin at one point and was able to regain the
chip lead.  But Ivey won most of the late pots and achieved victory.



·        The final hand of the night came down to a single card when
the players were somewhat close in chips.  Ivey was dealt 7-6-4-2 and
moved all-in.  Monnette called the raise and showed 9-7-5-2.  Ivey was
the clear favorite, but Monnette was very much alive.  But he caught a
7, which paired his hand (bad in lowball).  Ivey caught a 5, which
gave him a super-strong 7-6-5-4-2 – and the victory.



·        The tournament officially began on Tuesday, June 2nd, at 5:00
pm.  The tournament officially ended on Thursday, June 4th, at 10:45
pm.





WSOP Statistics



·        Through the conclusion of Event #8, the 2009 WSOP has
attracted 11,892 entries.  $21,146 in prize money has been awarded to
winners.



·        Through Event #8, seven Americans have won gold bracelets.
One Russian has won.  No other nations have been represented at the
WSOP gold bracelet ceremony, which takes place the day following the
winner’s victory.

[tikay]

Mention of Paul Darden here - I used to enjoy watching him, at ther WPT thingies, but I've not seen or heard of him in a while.


Errors and Omissions (Previous Reports):



·        The following text appeared in yesterday’s final report (Event #6):



Freddie Ellis, the new champion, is African-American.  He became the
fifth African-American in WSOP history to win a gold bracelet --
joining Walter Smiley, Carolyn Gardener, Phil Ivey, and David
Williams.  What is relevant about cultural heritage is that all of
these champions won their WSOP gold bracelets in Seven-Card Stud
events (Note:  Ivey actually has five WSOP titles, but one came in
Seven-Card Stud, another came in Seven-Card Stud High-Low Split, and
another came in a Mixed game with Seven-Card Stud).  Smiley won the
Seven-Card Stud title in 1976.  Gardener won the Seven-Card Stud
championship in 1982.  Williams won his gold bracelet in Seven Card
Stud in 2006.



The name of one additional player was omitted.  PAUL DARDEN is another
African-American former WSOP gold bracelet winner.  Consistent with
the point of the previous text, Mr. Darden won his gold bracelet in
the $2,500 buy-in Seven-Card Stud championship held in 2001.

[George2Loose]

Is Praz stillin the 1500 6 max? If he is could be another good Brit hope and obv Praz's shot at a second bracelet